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Redbeard wrote:How does being fearless make them better? Either they're winning combat, and not testing, or they're losing combat. I'm not convinced that being fearless is a boon in an assault that you're already losing.

If you are space marines, being fearless is bad. Because space marines are generally better at shooting than they are in HtH, getting stuck in a protracted assault means you're doing less damage than you would otherwise. If you fail a morale test in close combat (or use combat tactics) and fall back, then that means you can bring extra firepower to bear--which does more damage--and because of ATSKNF, your marines usually rally and get back into the shooting war. Space marines greatly benefit from ducking out of fights they're losing and don't risk anything by doing so.

If you are an army with a poor armor save, being fearless is bad. Deamons, orks, and tyranid gaunts all suffer hugely from "no retreat" wounds because they have crap armor. So the extra wounds wipe out whole swaths of your guys--especially because every unit in a multiple combat has to make those crap saves--and the tide can turn very quickly if you're losing a fight.

Chaos marines are not space marines. If they fail a morale test and fall back, they can be wiped out instantly. Even if they get away, you're looking at at least one full turn of doing nothing while they make a non-ATSKNF rally, unless of course the unit is below half in which case it's gone. So with chaos marines, you risk losing large numbers of models instantly by falling back.

Chaos marines are not an army with a poor armor save either. Only one out of three "no retreat" wounds actually loses you a model (less for plague marines).

So chaos marines are an army that goes against the trend of most other armies in the game in that you actually lose fewer models by staying in combat and rolling "no retreat" saves than you would if you fell back from combat. Even if you are losing a fight by a point or to of CR each turn, your unit will remain in-play longer if you stay in combat, but you have a lot to lose by falling back.

"But," you say, "I want my guys to fall back so I can shoot at what they were fighting." Yes, that is true if you're playing IG or Space Marines or Tau or any army that is generally better at shooting than at assault. But Chaos marines are an assault army, not a shooty army. Your basic chaos marine has the stats of a dedicated assault trooper. Every non-vehicle unit in the entire chaos codex (and two vehicles) other than oblits gets as many or more attacks in HtH than shooting and does as many or more wounds in HtH than shooting. Most importantly, though, HtH wounds ignore cover saves. So chaos marines do at least as well against space marines with HtH as they would with shooting, but they do better against anything with a poor armor save than they would with shooting.

Plus, in fighting with a non-fearless, non-ATSKNF or fearless + crap armor opponent in HtH, if you're winning, you have a chance to instantly wipe out the entire unit, even with a bunch of models left. I've seldom seen chaos shooting be able to do that.

So instead of doing the SM/Guard thing of sacrificing or withdrawing units from assault and shooting the opponent, having fearless chaos assault infantry (cult marines or enhanced marines or possessed) lets you lock down enemy units, even in combats that you're losing, and hold them until your heavy-hitters can move in to finish them off *in assault* which is where chaos units really shine. You play to your strengths.

One caveat though: none of this applies to Lash/Oblit/PM spam armies which are actually an exception to the "chaos is assaulty" rule. That's a shooty army.

Good points! I'd quibble about your "does as many or more wounds in HtH as shooting" line, though - my Plaguemarine Death Guard squads with two plasmaguns can really, really dish it out a lot better in the shooting phase than they can in hand-to-hand.

Commissar Molotov wrote:Good points! I'd quibble about your "does as many or more wounds in HtH as shooting" line, though - my Plaguemarine Death Guard squads with two plasmaguns can really, really dish it out a lot better in the shooting phase than they can in hand-to-hand.

A pair of double-tapping plasma guns does about 2.2 wounds per turn against anything up to T5 and ignores armor saves..

It takes 4-5 plague marines, standing flat-footed, to do that many HtH wounds vs WS & T4, a bit more for T5, a bit less for WS3/T3, and less than that if they charge, and ignores cover saves. But throw in a power fist champ (who does nearly 1 wound by himself to anything up to T6 ignoring both cover *and* armor) and consider that assault happens twice per game turn, while shooting only happens once per game turn, and the power fist guy plus a couple of mooks are comparable to the damage output of your twin plasmas, more so versus bad armor, less versus good armor.

And anything Fearless costs way too much, except Plaguers (which are still expensive and need Offensive back up from CSM) or Noise Marines standing still for the whole game. Fabius... no. Read the article in my sig.

The "Chaos Assaulty" really works well with Rhino/Mechanized armies as well, and can really benefit from a Lash or two to pull the enemy into favorable assaults for you.

oooo, interesting article, Cannerus.

It looks to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that your argument boils down to "CSM are cheaper, so you can have more, so that's better."

I can't find any place where the article addresses the central point of my article, that fearlessness is *qualitatively* more important than model count, specifically when a chaos infantry unit is losing in assault, and therefore worth the premium cost.

A non-fearless CSM unit that loses even one round of HtH combat can theoretically lose up to 20 models in a single round to sweeping advance. Any number of non-fearless units in the same combat can lose just as many models in an instant.

You'd have to lose combat by 60 wounds in order to take that many losses (on average) versus fearless marines by "no retreat" saves.

By treating "no retreat" as if you're playing orks or gaunts where it's worse than falling back, your article misses the more complete picture of why fearless is good for chaos armies and doesn't really address my points at all.

What? Someone saying plague marines are expensive?
If anything Plague Marines are undercosted by a point or two...and I use them extensively.

Fearless is good for those that really don't want to care about Morale checks really, or pinning.
(leadership tests still happen though).

Fearless is generally good, but like all extremes, there are situations where falling back is preferable, but you don't get that choice.

Fearless removes that kind of risk.
The risk of losing the whole unit to one I test.
The risk of falling back and never regrouping.
It minimizes the risk of losing guys in combat, pretty nice with power armor.

But losing the combat by a huge margin, and taking lots of save sucks..... but if that's happening, you were most likely losing the squad anyway.
So no retreat saves are not so bad.

It's only bad if you commit lesser daemons and they get slaughtered bad and no retreats are rolled on the power armor dudes.

My 7 Cents.

I would add to the discussion that fearlessness is very usefull outside of close combat. These are obvious advantages but worth mentioning I think.

--Impervious to pinning. Great for mech armies -- no worries if your rhino gets popped. Also nice to know barbed strangler spam or other mass pinning armies aren't going to get that key pinning success against your army

--Impervious to casualty checks. Yes it is not often succesful against the high ld of CSMs, especially with a re-roll. But when it does happen it can be devestating.

I can't find any place where the article addresses the central point of my article, that fearlessness is *qualitatively* more important than model count, specifically when a chaos infantry unit is losing in assault, and therefore worth the premium cost.

The other thing about the fearless cult marines that is missing from that article -- they do not have model qty restrictions to their weapon upgrades. CSM just aren't worth taking unless they are 10 man. You don't have to take 10 PMs to get 2 specials, so comparing the cost of 10 vs 10 is not fair in my opinion. Same goes for Noise Marines which can function well in small squads. For Bezerkers and 1ksons it is a bit moot though

Sorry, but I disagree. With Chaos Marines, like redbeard said, youre either winning combat or youre losing combat and it doesnt really matter.

My CSMs have never been sweeping advanced away (nor have they ever run from shooting). They either slaughter their opponents (95% of the time), or they meet something that theyre not going to beat (Ctan, Ghazghkull) and they get destroyed through wounds.

Icon of Chaos Glory (reroll all failed leadership tests) is better than being fearless by far. Youre not likely to lose combat by more than 3 or so (if you do, youre going to lose the entire unit anyways) and rolling 7 or under in two rolls isnt hard to do.

Read the discussion thread about the article to hear much of what you've said and some good back and forth about it already done. First off: IoCG. 'nuff said. Pinning isn't a huge issue anymore, except against DE in Planetstrike.

@Sanctjud: Plaguers can take the heat from small arms fire, no doubt. What you're missing is that they don't return it at near the same rate. A Plague marine is 1 1/2 a CSM.

@Winter: The article does include that restriction. "Function well in small squads" only applies when they stand still for at least half the game, and they still have the reduced body count.

Any further discussion pertaining to the article should go in it's discussion thread My 2 cents is that fearless would be worth it as a "Veteran Skill," but not on many of the platforms we can get it on.

@Night Lords:
It only helps with failed morale.

NOT all leadership tests, that's a huge distinction. If you rr all ld test you are doing it wrong.

@Cannerus_The_Unbearable:
Not exactly 1.5, but close.

IMO it's comparable.
PM are tougher, less offensive.
CSM are MEQ(less tough), more 'small arms' attacks.

In the end they balance each other out in terms of combat results.
CSM kill more, die a bit more.
PM's kill less, die less.

My 7 Cents.

Blight Grenades make Plague Marines very resilient defenders.

Sanctjud wrote:@Night Lords:
It only helps with failed morale.

NOT all leadership tests, that's a huge distinction. If you rr all ld test you are doing it wrong.

Off the top of my head, what is there besides psychic, morale and pinning? Am i missing something?

Sanctjud wrote:@Cannerus_The_Unbearable:
Not exactly 1.5, but close.

IMO it's comparable.
PM are tougher, less offensive.
CSM are MEQ(less tough), more 'small arms' attacks.

In the end they balance each other out in terms of combat results.
CSM kill more, die a bit more.
PM's kill less, die less.

My 7 Cents.

Exactly. I've had much more luck at higher points levels to have more CSM running around with a nice beatstick coming in to help mid-game (DSing Termi squad, big IC, Summoned Greater, Winged DP, etc.) to deal with whatever their massive number of meltas and combis on the champs can't deal with. Granted if you're not using Rhinos for some reason the 10-man squad is a weird benchmark to get your 2 heavies. That's one thing I love about Assault Havocs and hitching ICs. Who says Chaos can't field Fire Dragons?

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:

Sanctjud wrote:@Night Lords:
It only helps with failed morale.

NOT all leadership tests, that's a huge distinction. If you rr all ld test you are doing it wrong.

Off the top of my head, what is there besides psychic, morale and pinning? Am i missing something?

Yup, 50 MEQs is very respectable.

My 2000 is:
2 Daemon Princes, 6 oblits in 2 hvy slots, 30 plague marines in 3 rhinos, 4 melta+2flamers+3 icons+3 fists, and one squad 20 lesser daemons.

So I'm down by 20 in terms of 'marine' numbers.
I'm experiementing with lesser daemons and help give me numbers.

20 LDS do NOT make up for the 20 MEQs that you have in your list, but it's nice to have 'similar' infantry numbers.

My 7 Cents.

Flavius Infernus wrote:If you are an army with a poor armor save, being fearless is bad. Deamons, orks, and tyranid gaunts all suffer hugely from "no retreat" wounds because they have crap armor. So the extra wounds wipe out whole swaths of your guys--especially because every unit in a multiple combat has to make those crap saves--and the tide can turn very quickly if you're losing a fight..

When running Ork squads of 30 boys, I disagree.
In these situations fearless is good, as a base Infinitive of a 2 means getting away without being wiped is a poor option. Its better to lose a few more cheap boys than the entire squad.

@Sanc: I used to pad with LDs but for 2 points more you can get guns and a 3+ armor as opposed to a 5+ invuln. It helps that they start off the board so there's less time for them to get shot, but those 2 points get you quite a bit in return. Where are our drop pods again?

It could be a huge distinction, depending on what army you face. A Psychic Scream Tyranid army forces tons of pinning checks at penalties, which Chaos Glory does not allow you to reroll. Same with IG combos of Psykers and pinning (whether snipers or barrage).

Then it comes down to "Is it worth paying extra points for the chance that you'll be playing any of those armies." Everyone's mileage will vary on that.

Night Lords wrote:
My CSMs have never been sweeping advanced away (nor have they ever run from shooting). They either slaughter their opponents (95% of the time), or they meet something that theyre not going to beat (Ctan, Ghazghkull) and they get destroyed through wounds.

This is exactly my point. When fearless units meet something they're not going to beat (C'tan, Ghaz), they lose individual rounds of combat, but still hold and tie down those units. Then something that can kill those units in HtH arrives and bails them out, and you come out of the fight with the original unit still alive, instead of losing them.

In recent games I've had squads of plague marines and enhanced marines eat charges from genestealers, hive tyrants, big ripper swarms, etc, lose the first round of combat, then turn around and win the attrition fight or hold long enough for my dedicated hammer units to get their charges and wipe out the units being held on the anvil.

Night Lords wrote:Icon of Chaos Glory (reroll all failed leadership tests) is better than being fearless by far. Youre not likely to lose combat by more than 3 or so (if you do, youre going to lose the entire unit anyways) and rolling 7 or under in two rolls isnt hard to do.

Not correct. It happens to me pretty often that I lose a combat by 5 or more by taking a charge with a fearless unit, hold, then turn around and win. Remember in later rounds the other guy doesn't get his charge bonus, Ghaz loses his 2+ invul from waaagh and so forth, while your guys are still pumping out the same number of attacks. Even with a morale reroll (which precludes you taking one of the good icons) it's no fun trying to roll a 4 or 5 on two dice.

Also I'm sure you have at least one story of the CSM unit with a chaos glory icon that broke from shooting and fell back off an objective or off the board at a critical moment, even with the reroll. I know it used to happen to me often enough when I played non-fearless CSM. It never ever happens with fearless units.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable :

About lesser daemons.
They've done well enough for me.

I have much ork players and I always manage to outcharge the hordes........now they have all gone mech.....

In addition, it's only 260 points, the other option that competes with the lesser daemons is a 10 man raptor squad blinged out.
But the lesser daemons offer me more utility, the raptors are a bit one dimentional.

IMO, try the 20 man lesser daemons, it's pretty fun.
I got hooked to them when I did a 60 lesser daemon list at 1500, with 2 rhino cSM squads and a biker lord with some change.
It's by no mean a crazy competitive list, but spending time with lots of lesser daemons shows me that they take some finese to get the most out of.

In addition, yes, it's a 20 point difference between 10 lds and 10 CSM, but the 10 CSM will most likely need weapons....icon... champ....that all adds up.
You pay for what you get which is a better equipped squad to deal with anything, but lesserdaemons are comparatively cheap and you get what you pay for.......sometimes CSM just don't 'fit.'.

My 7 Cents.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Night Lords wrote:
My CSMs have never been sweeping advanced away (nor have they ever run from shooting). They either slaughter their opponents (95% of the time), or they meet something that theyre not going to beat (Ctan, Ghazghkull) and they get destroyed through wounds.

This is exactly my point. When fearless units meet something they're not going to beat (C'tan, Ghaz), they lose individual rounds of combat, but still hold and tie down those units. Then something that can kill those units in HtH arrives and bails them out, and you come out of the fight with the original unit still alive, instead of losing them.

In recent games I've had squads of plague marines and enhanced marines eat charges from genestealers, hive tyrants, big ripper swarms, etc, lose the first round of combat, then turn around and win the attrition fight or hold long enough for my dedicated hammer units to get their charges and wipe out the units being held on the anvil.

There are only two possible outcomes when charged by something CSM cant stand up to:

1) A single monster like the hive tyrant charges them with his 5 attacks, killing 3. Knocks leadership down to 7. Powerfist swings back and maybe does a wound. Leadership 8. Then you get two rolls, youre most likely not going to fail. Then the following turn he gets 4, making it less likely he'll make you run, and you can keep trying with the fist.

2) You (somehow) get swarmed by Ghaz and Nobs with feel no pain. Youre going to lose your plagues/CSM/whatever. You lose by 7 wounds. Do you really want to stay in the fight? Even if your heavy hitters are nearby, its going to be FAR better to get a round of shooting in on your turn and then charge them anyways instead of keeping 2 CSMs in battle. If youre lucky, you may even pull them away with half a squad and regroup.

Not correct. It happens to me pretty often that I lose a combat by 5 or more by taking a charge with a fearless unit, hold, then turn around and win. Remember in later rounds the other guy doesn't get his charge bonus, Ghaz loses his 2+ invul from waaagh and so forth, while your guys are still pumping out the same number of attacks. Even with a morale reroll (which precludes you taking one of the good icons) it's no fun trying to roll a 4 or 5 on two dice.

Also I'm sure you have at least one story of the CSM unit with a chaos glory icon that broke from shooting and fell back off an objective or off the board at a critical moment, even with the reroll. I know it used to happen to me often enough when I played non-fearless CSM. It never ever happens with fearless units.

If a squad does 5 wounds to you, its not likely that they will suddenly do nothing to you next turn. You will also have 5 less guys with attacks, meaning youre killing far less anyways.

The other icons are expensive, and if youre giving CSM one of those you could just buy the specialized units anyways. For the 30 points I spend on khorne, I can get 2 meltas and chaos glory.

Ive never had any of my units run, ever (I HAVE had an entire unit decimated before however). Luck? Or skill?

Lets take a look at shooting:

I run 10 man squads all over the board. First off, theyre almost always in rhinos if theyre not in CC. However, after I win combat, and I am sitting out in the open, youre going to need to dedicate some serious shooting to my marines to kill 2 or 3 of them, depending on how combat went. Killing 25% of my squad when most of your units are gone or getting slaughtered in CC is not likely.

However, lets say you do it. With Icon of Chaos Glory, their is a 0.69% chance (Ld 10, meaning 11 or 12 needed, 1/144, 1/12 chance x 1/12 second chance) Im going to run. Simply put, no, Im not worried about running.

As for CC, I simply try to avoid battles I cant win, which are truly rare in itself with CSM. Special units like Nobs that can beat them down I already have a plan for and are moving to intercept with something else.

I play with a fast army. I have no problem running backwards or in circles to avoid battles I dont want to face.

Fearless is for the risk averse that overweight the small chance of running from shooting casualties.
In addition to light casualties in combat.

It's true you have control in avoiding fights, but it's not always the case you get away. The opponent will be trying to get to you as much as you are wanting to move away from him, dice can serve to help or hinder.

I try to stay out of said fights like you Night Lords, but with some counter chargers, I don't think it's that bad, fearless or not.

My 7 Cents.

Apart from Fabius Bile's enhancements, is there anyway to actually get fearless on ordinary CSM's? Cause a lot of this discussion revolves around them.

If you take a fearless cult troop, usually you are doing so for the other advantages it gives you, which are not easily duplicated in regular CSM squads.

However, lets say you do it. With Icon of Chaos Glory, their is a 0.69% chance (Ld 10, meaning 11 or 12 needed, 1/144, 1/12 chance x 1/12 second chance) Im going to run. Simply put, no, Im not worried about running.

Actually, it would be 1/12 + 1/12 (1/6) to roll over a 10. However, the probability of fleeing is still only around 3%.

slice of toast wrote:

However, lets say you do it. With Icon of Chaos Glory, their is a 0.69% chance (Ld 10, meaning 11 or 12 needed, 1/144, 1/12 chance x 1/12 second chance) Im going to run. Simply put, no, Im not worried about running.

Actually, it would be 1/12 + 1/12 (1/6) to roll over a 10. However, the probability of fleeing is still only around 3%.

How would it be 1/6? Youre saying it's easier to roll over 10 twice in a row than it is to once.

If I remember high school math correctly (which could be wrong), since the two events are independent of one another, you square the odds of the original roll, which is 3/36 or 1/12 -> 12* = 144.

Basically its a 92% chance youll pass it, and then theres another 92% chance youll pass in the case you get within that 8%.

92% is still less than 100%--but now we're probably talking more about playstyle than math. Non-fearless units with Chaos Glory give you a small chance of huge losses when losing combat, fearless units give you a larger chance of smaller losses when losing combat.

I can really only speak from my experience on the question of whether units can consistently come back or win after losing a round or two of close combat by 5+ more points. In my experience so far--and because my chaos armies are built on hammer & anvil principles where the job of troop units is to catch and hold enemy assaults--I find that it works more often than not. Again, possibly a playstyle difference.

And, yep, the subtext here is that this whole discussion came up for me when I started using enhanced marines a lot. The way I play, 3 points for a fearless chaos marine is a bargain (the extra strength is just a bonus), and more effective for me than non-fearless marines with glory icon.

Sanctjud:

I agree: I think that the Chaos Space Marine army is best distinguished from the Space Marine army as being a high-risk army. You don't get any And They Shall Know No Fear or Combat Tactics, or whatnot to minimize the risk of bad stuff happening. You can get Fearless, but if via Enhanced Warriors then you simply shift the risk, and if via Cult Marines, then you pay a premium for a specialized unit, again shifting the risk.

Flavius Infernus wrote:92% is still less than 100%--but now we're probably talking more about playstyle than math. Non-fearless units with Chaos Glory give you a small chance of huge losses when losing combat, fearless units give you a larger chance of smaller losses when losing combat.

I can really only speak from my experience on the question of whether units can consistently come back or win after losing a round or two of close combat by 5+ more points. In my experience so far--and because my chaos armies are built on hammer & anvil principles where the job of troop units is to catch and hold enemy assaults--I find that it works more often than not. Again, possibly a playstyle difference.

And, yep, the subtext here is that this whole discussion came up for me when I started using enhanced marines a lot. The way I play, 3 points for a fearless chaos marine is a bargain (the extra strength is just a bonus), and more effective for me than non-fearless marines with glory icon.

No, its actually a 99.31% chance youll pass. Its 92% without chaos glory. Then another 92% chance again.

Its a different playstyle, sure. However, enhanced marines for 3 points each add up and are a waste of points when i can simply buy another unit with IoCG for the same cost. More wounds, shooting, attacks, and scoring, all while theyre basically fearless anyways.

Flavius Infernus wrote:And, yep, the subtext here is that this whole discussion came up for me when I started using enhanced marines a lot. The way I play, 3 points for a fearless chaos marine is a bargain (the extra strength is just a bonus), and more effective for me than non-fearless marines with glory icon.

You also have to throw in the points for bile spread across your whole army, because he's pretty useless by himself as opposed to some of the other chaos HQ's.